Build An Adversary In A Few Easy Lessons

This tutorial will teach you to build a computer game AI using "adversary search". I will show you how to build a computer opponent for a simple "mini" chess game in a series of small steps. In doing this, we will see how these players can be built for other chess-like games. Along the way, you will learn some computer science, some software engineering, and some coding skills. Instead of an exam, your mark will be based on the program you build. There will be a tournament, for fun and for a tiny prize, at the end of the course.

Outline of the Course ([*] is a take-home assignment):

    Wednesday Afternoon
  1. Rules of Mini-Chess
  2. Build a Mini-Chess Board
  3. Build a Mini-Chess Move Generator
  4. Build a Mini-Chess Mover
  5. Build a Mini-Chess Random Player [*]
    6. Thursday Morning
  6. Build a Mini-Chess State Evaluator
  7. Build a Depth-Limited Negamax Search
  8. Do Iterative Deepening Timed Search
    9. Thursday Afternoon
  9. Add Alpha-Beta Pruning to the Search
  10. Order the Moves for Alpha-Beta
  11. Do Do-Undo
  12. Some Improvements [*]
    13. Friday Morning
  13. Validate Your Program
  14. Intro to Adversary Search and Computer Games
    15. Friday Afternoon
  15. Tournament (until end)